[Updated] List of announced hearables

The “human” hearables are one of the most unique or rather “human” looking hearables that I have seen so far. Their design is inspired by the human ear, should sell at $400 and be available in July 2017. On indiegogo the company collected $518,525 with an intended goal of $150.000. In regards to software features they have a audio sharing (share the music you are listing on your phone with others wearing the “Human”), ambient noise control, live language translation and bio-metric monitoring. What makes them stand out (besides their design) is that they can also server as loudspeakers when attached to each other and their sleep-feature which will “lull” you into sleeping, track you sleep cycles and awaken you. Also, they claim to have a 12+ hour battery life.

The Air hearables are still founding on indiegogo and have surpassed its goal of $50,000 by quite a bit, standing currently at $1,495,152 with 12 days left. They are supposed to launch in January 2017 for $159. What makes them unique is that they are the world’s first carbon nanotube hearables. Besides that, they come with a charing pod, are water resistant, noise isolating and work with Amazon Dot and Echo, amongst other features.

The Phazons’ focus is on sports and the company claims to be the “world’s first one-size-fits-all wireless earbuds — guaranteed not to fall off“.
Through an indiegogo campaign they have reached 1819% of its goal and collected a total of $2,009,261 and are now available for pre-order at a price of $179 for a “limited time”. I am not so sure whether it makes sense to focus that much energy as they have on making their hearables fitting each ear where you could simply change the foams. Nevertheless, interesting to see that they decided to focus on only one use case.

United Sciences has three hearables in its portfolio; the Aware Bluetooth Headphone, the Aware Hearable and the Aware Hearable with access to raw sensor data. The basic version, Aware Bluetooth Headphone, costs $199, is wireless and has an in-line mic. The more advanced Aware Hearable costs $349 and does the same but has additionally fitness tracking and brain monitoring (tracking EEG brain waves), amongst other things. The brain monitoring functionality should provide indications about stress, focus, sleep and level of relaxation. Tracking brain waves through EEG is in itself already a nice feature but what makes them even more unique is that they each hearable is truly unique, i.e., it is custom-fit.

It is currently being founded on indiegogo and has collected 3179% of its goal, resulting in $3,478,798 collected in total. Their release day is set to Mai 2017 at a price of $299 and should initially support English, Spanisch, French, Italian and Portuguese. Other languages, such as German and Russian will be supported later on.

The Here One was founded through Kickstarter and has collected a total of $635.189. Initially they were supposed to ship at the end of December 2015, however, now they are supposed to ship “holiday 2016”. Among other things, you can use them to selectively change ambient sound like increasing the bass or reducing noise on a plane.

Similar to other hearables, the IQbuds were also founded via indiegogo and reached 1459% of its goal, resulting in a total of $792,706 collected. They are now available for pre-order for $299 and are supposed to ship in February 2017. In terms of features they are quite ordinary and support things such as ambient noice cancellation and speech amplification to better hear the voices of people around you.

Kanon by Kanoa

The Kanoa hearables are available for pre-order at a price of $199.90 and should arrive at your home in spring 2017. In terms of feature they are pretty basic, besides being wireless and having a charging case they are sweat resistant.
Sign-up below to get updates on the availability of these hearables!

The Headphone by Bragi

Bragi has two hearables in its portfolio, the Dash is already available (you can find information on “List of available hearables”) and the Headphone which is a lighter version of the Dash. The Headphone is a very basic hearable; it has a feature Bragi calls audio transparency (muting environmental sounds), up to 6 hours of battery life and physical buttons and cost $149.

Currently being funded on indiegogo, the CLIK, similar to the Pilot, supports live voice translation. What makes them different to the Pilot is that they support local as well as long distance live translation and conference calls. A feature I find particularly interesting is what the company calls “personalized aural notifications”; with that you can configure which notifications you want to get delivered from you smartphone to your ear. If well executed, this function can be a great replacement for what is one of the key features of smartwatches. Moreover, they come with the usual charging case and have touch control, hey should support 37 languages once they are available Mai 2017 and you can have them for $199 via indiegogo or for $300 once they are out.Jabra Elite Sport by Jabra

Jabra describes these hearables as “the most technically advance true wireless sports earbuds” (at least as of 19th August 2016). From a hardware-standpoint, I find it hard to tell what makes them “the most technically advanced” hearables without testing them. The Jabra Sport Life app, however, seems to be part of the things such as your set target pace or heart rate, gives you advice on recovery to avoid overtraining and also supports VO2 Max testing. As expected for sport headsets, they are waterproof, but Jabra goes even further and gives you a three year warranty against failure from sweat. Further, they have three hours battery life plus an additionally six through the charging case. Jabra positions the Elite Sport to be for hobby as well as seasoned athletes. You can already pre-order them on the company’s website and they be available for £229.99 starting 5 December 2016.

The company describes these hearables as the first AI personal trainer. I am a big fan of AI in hearables and so I find this claim very interesting. These hearables will track you daily, learn from your behavior and coach you. For example, it gives you real-time instructions based on your performance but you can also have conversations with it; you might ask for your heart rate and get an answer from the headphones or the headphone might ask you and react based on your opinion. For instance, it might ask you whether you want to work out in rain as it also knows the weather. However, the Vi is not intended for sport use only, due to the necklace-like look you can wear them as an accessory. In “off-training” times it will check in to make sure you are ready for upcoming trading sessions. Further, the Vi comes with sound by harman/kardon and are sweatproof. They originated on kickstarter where they bypassed their goals of 100.000 and reached a total of 1.688.179 $. You can pre-order them for $279 over the company’s website.